On 10 June 2011,
the Coordinadora para la prevención de la tortura (CPDT),
a network of over 40 associations from different backgrounds
that work in this field, presented the seventh edition of its
exemplary report on torture in Spain, which covers the year 2010.

By adopting the definition
used by the UN Convention against torture and other inhuman or
degrading punishment, the report covers material concerning:

"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical
or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes
as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession,
punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or
is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing
him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination
of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at
the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public
official or other person acting in an official capacity".

It documents 251 cases in which 540 people reported or opened
legal proceedings in relation to their being subjected to attacks
or ill-treatment by public officers. The list is admittedly not
exhaustive, because some people asked for their cases not to
be reported, some cases included incomplete information or were
impossible to verify adequately, and there is always a number
of cases that goes unreported, particularly when migrants or
prisoners are on the receiving end of police brutality. A decrease
in the likelihood of participants in mobilisations reporting
or initiating lawsuits concerning violence against them is noted,
which some witnesses explained were a result of fear that doing
so may result in counter-charges being brought against them and
a lack of trust in investigating authorities. Conversely, the
report describes a slight increase in reports submitted by prisoners
and migrants as "significant", because it is difficult
for these people to file complaints and they run the risk of
suffering adverse consequences for doing so.

The report includes brief descriptions of the events in the cases
that are included, which are interesting in that they show the
variety of circumstances in which such incidents occur and in
explaining what the different kinds of behaviour by public officers
that the network aims to erradicate are. Deaths in custody are
also included, with details concerning 52 cases provided and
the authors noting that there have been at least 50 other cases
(in Catalan prisons) that are not included because they do not
have adequate information about them. Moreover, the report provides
a geographical breakdown of the regions in which they take place,
the forces to which police or prison officers involved belong,
and what categories are on the receiving end of such behaviour
by law enforcement officers. The regions and autonomous communities
in which the largest number of incidents are recorded are Madrid
with 51, Andalusia with 50, Euskal Herria (the Basque Country)
with 44, Catalonia with 23, Aragón and Galicia, with 18
and 17 respectively. As for the number of plaintiffs concerned,
the highest numbers were in Madrid (138), Euskal Herria (132),
Andalusia (68), Catalonia (67), Valencia (43) and Galicia (39).
The authors explain that reports may be filed by the same people
in different geographical contexts, particularly if they are
moved while they are in custody, a circumstance that is commonplace
in cases involving anti-terrorist operations. By contrasting
the figures with the population, two of the highest ratios of
complaints are from the north African enclave cities of Melilla
(7.89 per 100,000 inhabitants) and Ceuta (3.72), and the other
regions/autonomous communities in which this figure is higher
than the national average of 1.15 are Euskal Herria (4.69), Madrid
(2.14), the Balearic islands (1.63), Aragón (1.48) and
Galicia (1.39). No complaints were received from the regions
of Castilla La Mancha and La Rioja.

There is also a tentative breakdown of the typology of the victims
of violence or ill-treatment by officers from law enforcement
agencies into six categories, although some of the plaintiffs
fall within more than one group. Members of social movements
are recorded as being those most frequently mistreated (42 cases
involving 200 people, accounting for 37.04% of the total), followed
by migrants (60 cases/ 127people/ 23.52%), prisoners (78/ 85/
15.74%), people in other contexts including traffic controls,
alcohol testing, local feasts, etc. (54/ 77/ 14.26%), prisoners
held incommunicado (21/ 57/ 10.70%) and minors (8/ 12/ 2.22%).

The breakdown according
to which law enforcement agencies the officers singled out as
being the culprits in the recorded cases belong to, shows that
almost half the complaints concern the national police (79 cases
involving 222 people, accounting for 41.11% of the total), followed
by local police officers, prison officers and the Guardia Civil
(police force with military status) on a relatively equal footing
at between 15.74% and 14.63% of the total, affecting between
85 and 79 people, whereas there is a considerable difference
in the number of cases reported for these three categories: 27
involving the Guardia Civil, 38 involving local police forces
and 77 involving prison officers. The Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra
and the Basque Ertzaintza respectively account for complaints
by 9.63% and 3.15% of the victims, whereas the "others"
category that includes staff in centres for minors, military
police and port authority police, etc. applies to 2.40% of the
complainants.

&COPY; Statewatch ISSN 1756-851X.
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